Compost is considered black gold for gardners. We buy large quantities every year to try and amend our soil and make it more suitable for growing food. Compost is also a great way to get rid of food and yard scraps and “recycle” them back into good nutrients for the soil. Back in 2017, Allyson and I started our composting journey, mostly as a way to reduce our food waste. We bought a vermicompost box at that time. Vermicompost is made by putting food scraps into a bin with worms, typically red wigglers. Unfortunately, our first foray into vermicomposting resulted in a large number of fruit flies in the small apartment we were renting at the time. Luckily, we bought a home shortly after and had space to make a large compost pile outside. The vermicompost still lives on, but we put way less food in it now. This helps…

Last week I wrote about installing a vent fan in our bathroom to help with the humidity (and smells). This week is about the chandelier that we installed. All of the wiring in our house when we moved in was ungrounded, including the lighting. I spent a couple weeks after we bought the house, but before we moved in, to run new wiring to all of the outlets with grounding. At that time I got an electrician to put in a new 200 amp service to our house and add the grounding rods. What I did not do, however, was upgrade any of the lighting. At the time I didn’t want to open up any walls or ceilings to access the wires. Honestly, the lighting circuits worked fine and there wasn’t a big rush to upgrade them.  That all changed when Allyson asked me to install a new chandelier in…

Well, I figure it is about time I wrote an update regarding goals I set last fall. This feels like it is several months late, but better late than never. In that post, I laid out two different goals for myself using the SMART principles. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time bound. I think it is fairly obvious to say that I did not meet my time-bound goals, but let’s revisit them now and see how I am doing.  Goal #1 - Weight loss My original goal was to lose weight and get down to 165-170 lbs. I specifically laid out that my goal was to lose 2lb/week until I hit 160 lbs. At that point I would try to put back on some muscle weight. Since I wrote that post about 28 weeks ago I obviously got down to 160 lbs without any problems. And it would make sense…

In another addition of Weekend Builds™ , I have made myself a new workbench/assembly table. (If you’re confused by Weekend Builds™ it’s because I just made it up). In general, I have been trying to finish my workshop completely before moving on to other projects. However, this has proven to be relatively difficult as other projects have come up. These other projects would be much easier if I could build them on a table, rather than on the ground, so I designed and built a simple workbench last weekend. To begin, I first had to decide what my main goal was for the workbench. While I would love to have an amazing woodworking bench with all of the clamps, bench dogs, and various contraptions I could ever want, I needed something simple and quick to get started. I wanted something sturdy, but I’ll be using it mostly for assembly, so…